This weekly Oakland Futility Watch will point out that the Oakland Athletics are 28-74 right now, which is just a smidge worse than the Kansas City Royals (28-73), currently. So, when any mediot discusses how bad the A’s are, they are doing so with an agenda—because the Royals are almost as bad, and with a higher payroll … and Oakland beat KC in a three-game series earlier this season on the Royals’ home field. Facts.

So, that’s some positive news to start the column with, of course, as Oakland did win three games last week, including a series win at home against the Boston Red Sox. But Sunday’s game at home against the Houston Astros could have been a win if the A’s had been able to pull off the basic fundamentals once again. They couldn’t, and then they lost a very winnable game. That is the usual frustration that comes with this season.

In brief, it was a 2-2 tie game in the bottom of the eighth inning, and Oakland put men on first and second with no outs. Seth Brown then pulled off the first sacrifice bunt of his career to advance the runners before Cody Thomas check swung his way to an out without scoring the guy on third base. Phenom prospect Tyler Soderstrom proceeded to fly out to end the inning—with the Trashtros scoring in the ninth to win it.

We can’t blame this one, fairly, on Manager Mark Kotsay, but it’s just a sign of the times for Oakland with its low payroll and developing talent that may some day be good/great in Las Vegas. Brown’s execution was a nice surprise, since he’s such a bad player (age 30 with a .196 batting average). Thomas is an age-28 rookie hitting over .300 right now, so that was bad luck; age-21 Soderstrom is supposed to be awesome … in time.

Oh well; we will focus on the positive! Three wins this week bring the month’s total to six overall with a week’s worth of games still to play on the calendar. Back in early June, we laid out a pathway for the A’s to be able to avoid infamy, and they’re doing just what we projected—and then some, thanks to a 10-win June. In order for Oakland to not be the 1962 New York Mets or the 2003 Detroit Tigers, we guessed somewhat well.

So far. Back then, we’d hoped the Athletics would reach 24-25 wins by the end of July in order to maybe get to 41 victories by the end of the season. Well, again, this team has 28 victories and could finish July with 30 wins overall if it can manage some success this upcoming week against the cheatin’ San Francisco Giants and/or the scuffling Colorado Rockies—both series are on the road. Oakland could win three of these five.

The Giants are hot and cold, currently on a five-game losing streak, and with a make-up game in Detroit today, their team will be somewhat tired on Tuesday night back in San Francisco. The Rockies are just 39-60 this season, so perhaps the A’s offense can manage some wins in Coors Field over the upcoming weekend. We shall see, of course, but just remember the facts from the start of this column: the Royals are worse.

Yet no one in the mainstream MLB media seems to be pointing this out. We don’t have to wonder why.